Information about large IT suppliers

News You Can Use: 6/28/2017

Has outsourcing lost its strategic relevance?

Somewhere along this journey, global delivery of IT services grew less important and less strategic. Cost savings became the key criteria to measure success and service providers commoditized their offerings to meet market demand. But at what cost? Industry vets would likely point to a lack of innovation, poor delivery or the recent trend to repatriate services. Indeed, the desire for continued cost cutting has made functional CIOs and global IT service providers less and less relevant.

By definition the title of Chief Procurement Officer is no longer accurate or reflective of the job’s responsibilities. The title doesn’t even sound strategic. So I say kill it and demand the correct and more strategic title: Chief Value Officer.

The concept of CVO is nothing new. It has been suggested as a title for a senior level officer position for a number of years. I researched the title on Linked-In and found that there were actually quite a few people with that title across a number of industries and functions. Wikipedia’s definition “business value: is an informal term that includes all forms of value that determine the health and well-being of the firm in the long run.”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cpo-dead-michael-shawThere is an article every few months saying that the CPO has to evolve into something new (C#O, CVO) and yet there are companies that still don’t have proper procurement discipline. The title is just a title, the function of any good CPO is to bring value and reduce risk. How that is done as business evolves is what separates the good CPOs from the pack.

One reason for Karp and Tumblr’s silence? Last week Verizon completed its acquisition of Tumblr parent company Yahoo, kicking off the subsequent merger of Yahoo and AOL to create a new company called Oath. As one of the world’s largest ISPs, Verizon is notorious for challenging the principles of net neutrality — it sued the FCC in an effort to overturn net neutrality rules in 2011, and its general counsel Kathy Grillo published a note this April complimenting new FCC chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to weaken telecommunication regulations.

Now, multiple sources tell The Verge that employees are concerned that Karp has been discouraged from speaking publicly on the issue, and one engineer conveyed that Karp told a group of engineers and engineering directors as much in a weekly meeting that took place shortly after SXSW. “Karp has talked about the net neutrality stuff internally, but won’t commit to supporting it externally anymore,” the engineer said. “[He] assures [us] that he is gonna keep trying to fight for the ability to fight for it publicly.” Karp did not respond to four emails asking for comment, and neither Yahoo nor Tumblr would speak about the matter on the record.

Simply put, Automattic’s remote-working policies are just that popular. At a time when companies like IBM and Hewlett-Packard are calling employees back to the office, Automattic’s success with remote working is striking. The remote-working criticism–that it’s harder to get people to move in the same direction when they’re dispersed–just doesn’t seem to apply at Automattic.

In fact, says Mullenweg, it’s actually been a big benefit to the company. “I used to be very conflicted,” he told Quartz. “All I hear from my friends in San Francisco is how hard it is to hire. Should I not tell them this secret? I decided it’s a great idea and everyone should do it. I’ll keep shouting from the rooftop because everyone should do it.”